Changing the world

Have you ever heard the saying, “One person can make a difference”? It only takes one person to throw their idea out in the world and it can escalate to something extraordinary. That is exactly what happened to Ronny Edry Pushpin.

Principia College was hosting the Public Affairs Conference (PAC) to which I went. The conference had so many amazing people from around the world who are making a difference -Ronny was one of those people. I had the privilege to hear him speak and have a one on one talk with him and his amazing wife.

You probably are wondering, what did this man do? Ronny is a graphic artist who often posts things on Facebook. One day he finally had enough with the conflict with Iran. He got his wife to take a photo of him and his daughter together. Using his skills as a graphic artist he created the poster pictured above. He didn’t expect anything to come of it but around mid-night he went online and got the biggest surprise of his life. There were hundreds of comments and messages from Iranians so happy to know there were people from Israel that didn’t hate them. “We love you” are simple but strong words

Now he has started a chain of “Israel loves Iran” to others like “Iran loves Israel”, “Israel love Palestine” and the list goes on and on. He has 111,262 likes and the number keeps growing. He has gotten to know many people from Iran and both sides are realizing it’s their government and the media who exaggerates the hostility between both countries to their people.

The government has taught their people to see the other side as enemies. What Ronny soon realized was that each side has so much in common, they’re both real; people who smile, cry, hate, and love. The government had just dehumanized the people towards each other, that is why they could kill and hate each other so easily. The government teaches the children to fear one another so as they grown up their fear turns to hate without having an actual reason to hate one another.

This movement has opened the eyes and minds of so many people around the world. It just took one simple idea to spread to others; as Ronny said, “Just do it”. We need to take action and stop the hate and misjudgments in this world. If it is just loving everyone even if it seems like the hardest thing to do, love without judgment, then maybe it could spread and make a difference in our world.